Mere Pitaji is too good

.....why I think my dad is greatest.....


Yesterday radio was all gang-ho about fathers, some crappy date like father's day or something. All the radio frequencies had that stupid callup shows running. Each kid had a reason to brand his/her dad as greatest, or among the greats, right in that league. It made me ponder. I pondered with Dr. Dorian (Scrubs fame) expression on my face. I came up with following reasons:

1) When most kids were promised bicycles for performing well in exams. My dad promised me a "Riksha" for not performing.

2) These days I'm trying to establish a business setup, it's not easy. If I had a dependent wife and two kids and had I came to new town(Delhi) with Rs. 5000, I guess it wouldn't have made things easier. I guess they were not for him either, I never got to know.

3) About 13 years ago, he was informed by a friend's dad about photogrpahs of some ladies in compromising position were supplied to his son by me. I kept waiting for an uncomfortable speech from him but he comfortably forgot the incident.

4) He is even more forgetful than me. I keep losing keys, he keep losing cars.

5) He brought me a bottle of Black Label from his eurpoe trip, while 'officially' I havent still tasted liqour.

While a lot of kids adore their fathers for doing this or doing that, I simply love him for just not doing anything and let me find my own life (As I'm reading last line again, it is somehow looking sarcastic. I must clear however there is absolutely no sarcasm intended). I think he had given me just one career advice so far, that was when I had screwed up my 12th exams, to join some course at safdarjung airport for being a pilot. I think he was just kidding or perhaps indicating to me how wierd I am allowed to get. I chose a more conventional route, but that was my choice.

I think I got my two most defining traits of my personality from him. One obviously is forgetfullness and other is wit. I learned from him that there is only one right perspective to look at this world and life in general and that is the witty perspective.<< ..... at this point I broke my Dr. Dorian thinking posture and asked myself. Really? Am I really witty? Or so I would like to think of myself? Then I again went in to Dr. Dorian thinking posture, this time with my face on other side. Following incident popped in my head......>> In my car..... bombs was driving. It was fourth day of some test match in which India had scored some 600 odd runs in first inning and then australia had scored some another 700 in reply. We were having discussion about the match, Bomb Vardhan in his usual analytic and optimistic approach explained to me that India can still win this match. It just takes one good over. Proabability to hai. While I was literally furious on how can he think like that, he kept saying Proabability to hai. Since we were stuck in traffic and car's A/C was not working, it became more irritating and discussion just continued. Then he went on explaining how infact australia can also win. Proabability to hai!!. He could see I was running out of arguments for a draw, to change the topic he said, "this seat belt rule should be relaxed in such thick traffic. Come on, what is going to happen? Will the driver bang his head on steering for a very painful death?" I thought over his rather insightful observation and replied "Proabability to hai" . :) <<.......Oh cummon that was witty, perhaps not as good as when hathi once asked my dad "Aap kaun?" and he replied "Rishte main to hum shishir ke baap lagte hain" . But perhaps in a league close by, So get back to your original thinking posture....... >>


One thing that I haven't inherited from him is his altruism. I think he is closest to Gandhi in present times. This might look like an overstatement, but trust me I know him for last twenty years. He really is. He really makes me wonder how can anybody dissolve boundaries between self and non-self to such an extent. To me it just looks crazy. Perhaps someday I will grow up to understand.

Crossroads of life

You keep coming across these annoying crossroads in life and the route you take on these cross roads pretty much determines your life. Today for sake of writing this blog I'm looking back at the major crossroads I faced in my rather un-eventfull and un-important life so far. I dont think I had much say in that pre-life decision of being born to be or not be , had I that choice I most definately would've decided angainst it, but then I guess nobody asked for my opinion. I think the first cross road for which I chose the route was in 1996 when I decided to change school and shifted from one crappy school "A" to another crappy high school "B". Right now, as I look back I dont have any friends from B also I did not gained much from B. Those two years in B were my worst so far, no real friends, no pseudo achievments. I was bullied around and made fun of most of the times. I did gained some basic skills in basketball and volleyball but I think my biggest gain was an absolutely abysmal academic performance. This performance helped me take decision on the next cross road: to drop or not to drop for IIT preperations. I'm quite sure had I performed even averagely in 12th board I would've enrolled myself to some course in some DU college. It was not to be.

In 2003 when I graduated from IIT, there was no crossroad as is generally the case with most of guys at that time. No 'core' vs. 'IT' vs. 'MBA' dilema I just had one job so I just took it. But that year there was a crossroad of another sorts, to go after that girl or not. I decided not to. It was perhaps a bad decision, I would never know. Later in 2004 I decided to go after one and it kind of back fired. Still it was fun.

In 2005 I took a decision to quit my job, screw up all my IIM interviews and start my own company. That hasn't prooved all that bad so far, I like to be the captain of my ship, however small that ship is, however unsignificant is my role in sailing that ship. Actually there was a decision to be made when I got through IIM Lucknow but since I hate to make decisions I deferred that decision for a year. But these screwed up ghosts just dont die. I'm here in 2006 again at the crossroad to go or not to go to lucknow.

My overwhelming love for Black pearl makes the decision intutively obvious but there are few subjectivities involved which complicate the situation, they are:

1) As crappy as a MBA course is, still it very necessary for if the ship sinks and I have to sell myself as a slave.

2) If anyone aborts this ship its probability of sinking is just too high.... and pirates are not be trusted.

3) You can go as low as 50% attendance if you don't care about grades in Lucknow, that means I might be able to actively involved in my company while persuing this MBA thing.

4) If I dont go for MBA I would have to get in to this marrige thing.

5) I had almost taken a decision to try MBA and my company side by side coz I was sure Black pearl's survival, but then a high tide stuck. Our cash cow client terminated his project. When I got this news I also terminated my last blog (Ingredients of a good party) and not been able to get back to it.


Now the question is would I be able to fill up buckets and drain the water out of the pearl while I'm in Lucknow. Even if the answer is yes, is MBA worth this much pain? From a perspective of a hunger struck kid in somalia or champaran does it really matter?

Ingrediants of a good party!!

.....about a rocking party I hosted yesterday..... Yesterday I hosted a kind of wild party. Today, its rather funny to see aftereffects of the party on all those who attended yesterday. Chummi kee jeeb uske gale main chipak gayee hain however this hasn't stopped him from his charectristic blah blah blah. Varun can not move much coz his back hurts. Bombs was somehow subdued today before diappearing somewhere. I think I've a hairline fracture in my right shoulder but I'm waiting for hangover to go away than I'll think about that seriously. But I am seriosly thinking on ingrediants that made it a good party, perhaps these ingrediants can be used again in the next dish, that would be fun. Let me try to ducument it here for future reference.


People

Formal and Professional people are strict no no. Uptight people should be avoided but usually when party rocks, they cut loose (like me:)). Obviously party time people are made for such parties. Number of people can vary from 10 to 30, after that it becomes a bit of crowd. There should be atleast 3 girls otherwise it would be an all boys party and no matter what, all boys parties are always sad. What about all girls party? Well.....will need an opinion on that, haven't experienced that but as a concepts sounds a bit sad. So atleast 3 girls and atleast 1 boy (1 boy in an all girls party can never be bad, can it? )


Booze

No you can not have a good party without booze. There should be lot of it, infinite for all practical purposes. There should be a bit of everybody's taste, However kind of booze matters a bit only in beginning after a while it all becomes the same. Cigerettes are absolutely optional but should be avoided due to safety hazards. Dope and other stuff.... well, not recommonded for a lively party consuming them requires too much effort and as headline of every stupid paper in town will tell you there are few associated risks.


Music

Music can make any dull party a rocking party and vice versa. Just like refree in good match of soccer never gets noticed similar is with music. Music should be such that you dont even think about it because you are too damn busy dancing. I'm trying to recall I remember gilasi number was played i remember few songs from rang de basanti and perhaps few from bluff master but seriously that coulndn't have carried us for 4 straight hours, there's a huge void. That damn DJ made our party rocking. For first time I'm having respect for a profession which I thought was really lame and I would like to take back all the jealosy I had for all those DJ's who get all the nice looking girls.




Abhee I've to go, rest of the things I'll write later. I just got a sad news. Party is over.